The present invention is directed toward a system for shredding tires, and more particularly, toward a machine into which only half of a tire is fed and spread out so that a grinder may shred the tire easily and safely.
Disposing of used tires in an effective, economical, and environmentally safe way is a concern to many people and industries. One way to dispose of such tires is to shred them. Shredding tires, however, is a difficult task. One reason for the difficulty is that the tires themselves are extremely flexible, tough, and difficult to handle, especially if the tires are large.
Shredding machines have been known and used in the past but most of these machines are extremely large, thereby requiring a large amount of space and power to operate. They are, therefore, not truly portable and the tires must be brought to the machine wherever it is located. Also, the cutters on these machines often wear out quickly or frequently break teeth due to the flexibility and abrasiveness of the tires. Other machines require heavy equipment. Furthermore, some of these machines require a great deal of manual labor in cutting the tires before they can be shredded. Finally, these machines often do not have adequate safety and protective features for the user. As a result, injury to the user could occur.
A tire shredding device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,386 to Morris. Morris discloses a tire converting apparatus which shreds tires into small pieces by first cutting a tire in half or in smaller pieces and then feeding each of these pieces into a shredder. The Morris machine is large and cumbersome and requires a large amount of power to operate. Because of its size and power requirements, It obviously can not be made to be truly portable. A further disadvantage of the Morris machine is that it may cause injury to the user because of the manner in which the tires are introduced into the machine.
There is, therefore, a need for a tire shredding machine that is more compact so that it can be made to be portable yet efficient and safe to operate.